The media has been unfair to say the least to Pope Benedict the past week. But MSNBC crossed a line today. Big time. The liberal news network had a headline up that reads “Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far.” This is crass libel. Awful stuff. No explanation can explain this away and they haven’t offered anything up yet.
The The Catholic League writes:
Catholic League president Bill Donohue accuses MSNBC of libeling Pope Benedict XVI:
Go to the home page of MSNBC and click on “World News.” From there click on “Americas.” Next click on the article, “Losing Their Religion? Catholicism in Turmoil.” Scroll down and in the “Click for Related Content” section there is an article entitled, “Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far.” Clicking on this piece takes the reader to an article about a homosexual German priest who had sex with males in the 1980s. It says absolutely nothing about the pope. Yet MSNBC paints Pope Benedict XVI as a child molester in the tease to the article.
And check out Father Z for more. He’s really ticked off and calling for action. Even though MSNBC has since removed the headline Father Z has the screenshot.
March 31, 2010 at 1:54 am
Ignore even the typo, "Losing their religion?"
What Catholic is left that would "lose their religion" over this?! Even if you were a complete moron and assumed that the Pope had personally signed off on "hiding" the priest, would you not understand that we've spent almost a decade trying to fix this?!
In other words, something that happened in the 80's and we've spent a DECADE working on won't exactly make you "contemplate" anything at this point.
We better be reaching the peak of this nonsense soon, I can not be in this foul of mood on holy week. Maybe on Easter Sunday MSNBC will declare bankruptcy.
March 31, 2010 at 2:27 am
Concerning the typo thing, I think it would indicate some real negligence if it was an accident… I mean one hopes they have proofreaders.
On the other hand, before alleging a conspiracy or a willful act, it would be good to have some proof.
I understand the media has been behaving reprehensibly lately, but we do need to consider the possibility of a real error or the malice of an individual as opposed to a policy of MSNBC.
The media has been judging us unjustly. let's be very sure we don't do the same to them.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a8.htm#2477
March 31, 2010 at 3:24 am
Typo or not, this just shows how incompetent they are.
If it was a typo, it never should have been there. Because that means that nobody even bothered to fact check or edit this piece…or they had a really lousy editor who didn't see the disconnect between the priest and the pope headline.
And if it wasn't a typo, well, this is just a whole new level of hubris and idiocy.
March 31, 2010 at 4:16 am
If only the MSM expended this much, or heck, a fraction of this much effort going condemning/exposing the wide-spread abuse of children which cuts a wide swathe across all of our society. And I mean every corner: schools, other churches, other organizations. Oh, except the Catholic church who had, what, 6 alleged cases of potential abuse last year?
When they do that, I might give them the benefit of the doubt on the "typo."
March 31, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Did you see on WDTPRS that NBC apologized?
March 31, 2010 at 4:32 pm
You can tell whether a thing is an innocent mistake statistically: real mistakes do not always cut the same way. In other words, if the "mistake" always occurs at the same side's expense, it's no random mistake but a passive-aggressive attack. There are no counterexamples, in any story however benign, where a MSM outlet wrote "priest" when it meant to write "pope".
Compare the "Name That Party" phenomenon, in which the party affiliation always named prominently when a Republican politician is caught in scandal, and mysteriously absent when said politician is a Democrat. Several times, scandalous Democrats have even been falsely labeled as Republicans!
Or for an apolitical example, when the supermarket price scanner errs consistently on the side of a price higher than that posted, you know you're being quietly cheated.
March 31, 2010 at 6:22 pm
What's amazing to me is how adult sex w/minors is abuse & big news when the RC is involved, but no news & choice when "safe schools czar" Kevin Jenninngs is involved and actually reason to deny federal funds and use of park land to the boy scouts when they try to prevent homosexual men from being scout leaders to prevent predatory attacks on minors.